From discourse to assemblage

This article provides an introduction to queer media studies, which interrogate the role of media technologies in the production and contestation of a heteronormative social order, structured by hierarchies between the sexes and between sexualities, themselves interwoven with relations of class and racialization. The first part presents the contribution of Michel Foucault's anti-essentialist approach to power relations, which enables us to break out of the double impasse that consists, on the one hand, in valuing all public expression of sexuality as a form of liberation and, on the other, in seeking to purify sexuality of all power relations. Four areas of research are then reviewed: the discursive analysis of media representations, the affect-based approach to reception surveys, approaches based on the materiality of technique and, finally, surveys of media production and regulation. The conclusion states that sexuality is a cross-cutting dimension of social life, which potentially concerns all research on media and communication technologies.

Béatrice Damian-Gaillard, Florian Vörös. From discourse to assemblage. Réseaux : communication, technologie, société, 2023, N° 237 (1), pp.9-34. ⟨10.3917/res.237.0009⟩ (lien externe). ⟨hal-05106270⟩ (lien externe)